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The Golf Club Announced for PC, PS4, Xbox One- Coming this Spring

B

Banjo-Kazooie

Member
Press release:

Veteran Sports Game Developer Bringing The Golf Club to Next Gen Consoles and PC

Canadian video game developer HB Studios announced today their next generation Golf simulation The Golf Club. With outstanding, fun gameplay and a gorgeous visual presentation, The Golf Club really jumps into the next generation with the procedural generation of courses and depth of social interaction. There truly will be an unlimited number of golf courses to be created, shared and played with your friends.

The Golf Club Course Creator can generate a brand new, original course in seconds that can be shared and played immediately online with friends and other gamers across PlayStation 4, XBox One and PC. The technique of procedural generation also brings loading times into courses down to next to zero and completely eliminates any waiting between holes. There are also full editing capabilities should gamers want to put their mark on the generated course. Customization extends to Tournaments and Tours, which can be shared along with the courses online.

On the social side you can challenge your friends on a new or existing course in real time or try to beat their best recorded round. Add to this a myriad of stat tracking and personal bests of friends and rivals to beat, notifications, challenges and social media integration and you truly have a golf club worth joining.

Built using the excellent Unity game engine, The Golf Club will be coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in the spring of 2014. For screenshots, videos and additional information on The Golf Club please visit www.thegolfclubgame.com.
Click to expand...

Key Features:
Course Creator - build a course in seconds to be shared online with friends, and be played immediately with people across PS4, XB1, PC. Full editing capabilities for courses, tournaments, tours.

Social Media sharing, achievements, challenges, leaderboards

Intuitive Controls - "We’ve created and fine tuned a swing mechanic that is more about feeling and fluidity above the users’ accuracy of hitting a marker on a power bar. Whilst anyone will be able to pick the controller up and play comfortably, the best players on the global leaderboards will be those with the best feel for the different golf shots and who are able to take into account ball lie, weather and terrain conditions."


Instantaneous Gameplay - No loading time inbetween holes, get ready to drive on the next hole right after sinking a putt on the previous hole. Minimal loading time between courses.

Unlimited Courses/Course Generation - You can generate unique courses by the press of a button. You can generate your own courses. "If you want to tailor the courses a little more there are high-level options available to you. Examples of these are the number of holes, par distribution, fairway width, number of bunkers, green size, green slope and rough coverage."

Edit/Create your own courses - "The editor gives you the ability of create from scratch or mould anything on the course. You can alter the terrain, move tees, move greens, move holes, delete holes, add holes, bunkers, rivers, ponds, trees, foliage, buildings, animals and other objects.

During editing you can play the ball from any spot to review holes and make changes as you see fit. The minimal loading times make this practical and enjoyable."

Online Sharing and Play -
•Play others creations - work your way through the huge database of user created courses, each rated by other users to help make the decision easy to make.

•Share your courses with the World – when you’re happy with your creations you can publish them for the rest of the world to play.

•Play against others live or from the past - each round you play on every course is saved Online. Choose from Friends Rounds, Record Rounds or Rivals Rounds (others players close to your ability) to compete against. Their ghost balls and scores will be visible throughout your round giving you the feeling of competition without losing the instantaneous game play. Ghost and live balls can be hidden if so desired either selectively or en masse.

•Compete in Tours and Tournaments – play against other players throughout the world in user made tours and tournaments.

•Watch others play the courses you’re on live – through our ball trace system you can see other users from around the world on the course that you are playing live, even if they’re on different holes.
Click to expand...

Videos:
Videos: http://www.operationsports.com/media/1132/the-golf-club/videos/
Images: http://www.operationsports.com/media/1134/the-golf-club/

Source - http://www.operationsports.com/news...ne-ps4-pc-videos-screenshots-features/?page=2
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/446433/the-golf-club-announced-for-ps4-xbox-one-and-pc/
 
U

UpsideDownAce

Member
Procedurally generated courses has the potential to be great or a disaster. Golf courses designed around risk vs reward are the best. Hopefully it can provide plenty of that.
 
R

RedRooster

Member
Oh momma, day one!
Thought I wouldn't have a golf game for another year, and even then it'd just be an uprezzed Tiger.
Custom courses is huge.
 
C

Coppanuva

Member
UpsideDownAce said:
Procedurally generated courses has the potential to be great or a disaster. Golf courses designed around risk vs reward are the best. Hopefully it can provide plenty of that.
Click to expand...
Yeah this is a good point. There's a reason golf courses hire people to design specific courses and why some are better than others. It'll be interesting to see how their generation works and takes golf design methodologies.
 
M

Maidenpool?

Member
Looks like a white knuckle thrill ride

In all seriousness though it looks good... except it has that darn "pause at the top" backswing transition that the Tiger games have. And I also bet their bunker animations are as unrealistic as Tiger's.
 
M

mf luder

Member
Didn't show anything of how the control system works which is all I want to see. If its just pull control stick back push forward then its not for me, tigers system is much improved in the last couple of games.
 
S

slapnuts

Junior Member
Banjo-Kazooie said:
Press release:



Key Features:
Course Creator - build a course in seconds to be shared online with friends, and be played immediately with people across PS4, XB1, PC. Full editing capabilities for courses, tournaments, tours.

Social Media sharing, achievements, challenges, leaderboards

Intuitive Controls - "We’ve created and fine tuned a swing mechanic that is more about feeling and fluidity above the users’ accuracy of hitting a marker on a power bar. Whilst anyone will be able to pick the controller up and play comfortably, the best players on the global leaderboards will be those with the best feel for the different golf shots and who are able to take into account ball lie, weather and terrain conditions."


Instantaneous Gameplay - No loading time inbetween holes, get ready to drive on the next hole right after sinking a putt on the previous hole. Minimal loading time between courses.

Unlimited Courses/Course Generation - You can generate unique courses by the press of a button. You can generate your own courses. "If you want to tailor the courses a little more there are high-level options available to you. Examples of these are the number of holes, par distribution, fairway width, number of bunkers, green size, green slope and rough coverage."

Edit/Create your own courses - "The editor gives you the ability of create from scratch or mould anything on the course. You can alter the terrain, move tees, move greens, move holes, delete holes, add holes, bunkers, rivers, ponds, trees, foliage, buildings, animals and other objects.

During editing you can play the ball from any spot to review holes and make changes as you see fit. The minimal loading times make this practical and enjoyable."

Online Sharing and Play -


Videos:
Videos: http://www.operationsports.com/media/1132/the-golf-club/videos/
Images: http://www.operationsports.com/media/1134/the-golf-club/

Source - http://www.operationsports.com/news...ne-ps4-pc-videos-screenshots-features/?page=2
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/446433/the-golf-club-announced-for-ps4-xbox-one-and-pc/
Click to expand...
VERY INTERESTING developers are starting to completely pass on the last gen versions this quickly.

Anyways...game looks pretty nice
 
S

Sisco360

Neo Member
I hope this game has PS Move support for PS4. I need a simulator for the winter and I figure with next gen technology it would come close to "real" simulators.

On a side note, I read bits and pieces about the new EA Golf game minus Tiger, anyone have any news on the release date of it?
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
I learned yesterday that HB Studios has now made it a goal to have mouse (swing) control enabled by release date for the PC version of The Golf Club. Apparently they've been surprised at the outcry for this control option and are working to make it happen. I've heard demands for both analog mouse control (aka TrueSwing in Tiger Woods speak) and 3-click meter control, and by "mouse control", they could mean one, either, or both. Don't know yet.

One other point that I'm not sure is fully understood about this game is that HB Studios still has the goal of making this game cross-platform playable. However, there are limits on how they aim to achieve that. You'll be playing against "recorded" rounds of others, no matter what platform on which they were recorded. The other player's activity will show up as what HBS calls "ghost balls" (insert joke here), which will show you the telemetry of the other player's shot and current ball position, along with strokes played.

It's not real time, but it's a step that could possibly widen the appeal of the game, provided it plays a decent game of golf.
 
B

bbagwell

Member
I am truly looking forward to this game. I spent more hours than I care to count making courses in Jack Nicklaus Golf & Course Design by Accolade way back in the day. I think their method of sharing course "recipes" instead of huge files will be fantastic. Plan on seeing some strategic pot and church pew bunkers on mine.

I signed up for the beta and expect to hear about it within the next few days. This just may be the thing that lets me stop brooding over Xbox Links Golf getting the shaft when EA and MS got in bed together for online play.

Also, think about the fact that EA had this group under contract for the past few years and passed over these great ideas. Golf for them was nothing more than cashing in on sales from having Tiger's name on the box. F you, EA.
 
CamHostage

CamHostage

Member
slapnuts said:
VERY INTERESTING developers are starting to completely pass on the last gen versions this quickly.
Click to expand...

That might be reading too much into things? This is a PC game that happens to have a console version because its CryEngine technology crosses over rather easily to their target specs. (The fact that this team is going the extra mile to make the console versions stand out is partly because they can with these new systems, partly because it's a new IP that the developer is desperate to succeed, and also of course partly because they care :) I'm not sure how this kind of game would have done on the crowded current-gen market, plus compromises would have had to have been made, so win-win-win for making it a next-gen game. I don't think it's making statement about next-gen versus last-gen game targeting though.

OnlookerDelay said:
One other point that I'm not sure is fully understood about this game is that HB Studios still has the goal of making this game cross-platform playable. However, there are limits on how they aim to achieve that. You'll be playing against "recorded" rounds of others, no matter what platform on which they were recorded. The other player's activity will show up as what HBS calls "ghost balls" (insert joke here), which will show you the telemetry of the other player's shot and current ball position, along with strokes played.
Click to expand...

Pretty cool.
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
hgplayer1 said:
This is the closest thing I've seen to a successor to Links on Xbox.

Hoping for the best!
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention this... after seeing the gameplay video last month, I thought about this is what Links 2004 might have evolved into if it had been continued on the 360. HBS isn't trying to create a PGA Tour type experience with this game. They want it to feel like 'a round with the guys'. Yes, there will be 72 hole tournaments that users can create and open it to as many people as they desire to play, but it's more about having a more casual gaming experience with your buddies.

One thing I think HBS may have underestimated is the demand that online multiplayer gamers will have to be able to see the golfer models of their playing companions. TGC only shows a colored bar with the name and the shot telemetry for those in your group. I forsee HBS offering an update early on to address the demand there will be for this.
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
bbagwell said:
I believe the same MP mechanic was used in the Tiger Woods franchise (probably by HB Studios) - I would much rather play a faster round than wait an interminable period of time while someone goes to the bathroom or makes a snack run between shots.
Click to expand...

A very similar multiplayer mechanic has been used in the Tiger Woods series since at least Tiger Woods 2011. The big difference between it and TGC is that the activity of the other live players doesn't have to be on the same hole. HB Studios hasn't done a Tiger Woods game for EA since they did the PS2 and PSP versions of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

I think the majority of those playing The Golf Club online will share your view on using the asynchronous, multiplayer play though. However, there is a vocal minority who are clamoring for old-fashioned, watch my opponent play their shot, turn-based play. They did post some good looking screen shots today. It was good to see some buildings and houses at last. I think their course creator is going to put this game over the top!
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
It was announced yesterday that The Golf Club will be coming to Steam, and offered as an "Early Access". I think this will be a real shot in the arm for the PC version. HB Studios still doesn't have a firm release date for the game on any platform, but they're standing by their "Spring '14" time frame.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
UpsideDownAce said:
Procedurally generated courses has the potential to be great or a disaster. Golf courses designed around risk vs reward are the best. Hopefully it can provide plenty of that.
Click to expand...

this.

Hopefully they have a decent amount of hand designed courses, either original or based on real ones. The 'create a course in seconds' sounds like a bullet point so they can say it has squillions of courses to play on

looks kind of pretty though. I'd still like an Everybody's Golf as well
 
Dr. Zoidberg

Dr. Zoidberg

Member
I'm definitely interested in this. We NEED another golf game that isn't a cutesy stylized game (HSG, Powerstar, Mario) or freaking Tiger Woods.

Don't get me wrong, HSG is great but I've been playing those games for years and each new version just feels like an up-res with a few new effects. Both the PS3 and Vita games were good, but (IMO) some of the later courses weren't so hot. I don't care for visually gimmicky courses, personally. It's bad enough that the characters all look like dolls based off of stereotypes, but then you have courses with Dinosaurs walking around, etc. I'd rather they keep it realistic OR go whole-hog into craziness a la Mario Golf where you have to hit it through hoops and stuff.

I'll buy the next HSG, but I'd really like a more realistic game to complement the HSGs of the world, and I've grown to hate EA's Tiger Woods franchise. I used to play the shit out of them on the original Xbox, but for some reason the first few on PS360 didn't do it for me and I haven't bought one since. I've tried the demos every time they come out but something just doesn't feel right with those games to me. I honestly can't explain it. I know I hated the putting on TW but I'm pretty sure they fixed that. I just have no desire to play them.

So yeah, I hope this turns out well. It'll be on PC too which will be a great boon.
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
mrklaw said:
Hopefully they have a decent amount of hand designed courses, either original or based on real ones. The 'create a course in seconds' sounds like a bullet point so they can say it has squillions of courses to play on
Click to expand...

I agree that the algorithm created courses are probably going to have a mass produced starkness to them, but I believe most people will go in and add their personal style to the course and give it some personality.

looks kind of pretty though. I'd still like an Everybody's Golf as well
Click to expand...

I have a hunch that it's going to do more than look pretty. The Executive Producer keeps talking about how important "feel" and "fluidity" is in the control interface. He says that it's so much about feel that they didn't need a swing meter or power gauge. If they've really pulled that off; it will be the big game changer in my book!
 
S

ShaneB

Member
Just yesterday I was saying I wish there was a new Hot Shots style golf game on PC... this isn't exactly that, but a golf game on PC I will glady take!

edit: love what I see in the videos. Will get this as soon as it pops up on Steam.
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
Nicktals said:
You're right, I was just going by the links in the OP. My mistake. I'll find the vids on their website, which appears to be here http://thegolfclubgame.com/
Click to expand...

Thanks for getting back to me on this; I was hoping HB Studios hadn't resorted to such measures. They've got all of their videos clearly cataloged at the official site (which yoy have the correct URL for. I'm anxious to see a gameplay video showing an echo ball twosome (or greater) play at least one hole from start to finish. I think that will show me a lot about this game. I just found out a couple of hours ago that I'd been selected for the Closed Beta, which should start in a week or two on the PC. I'll be playing the game post launch on the PS4 though...
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
ShaneB said:
Just yesterday I was saying I wish there was a new Hot Shots style golf game on PC... this isn't exactly that, but a golf game on PC I will glady take!

edit: love what I see in the videos. Will get this as soon as it pops up on Steam.
Click to expand...


ShaneB, I have little doubt that we'll see Hot Shots Golf XXXX at some point on the PS4. My guess is Fall of 2015. While I don't pretend to think that The Golf Club will fully pacify gamers who want a Hot Shots game; I think they may surprise themselves at how much this game may at least keep them entertained while they wait. The Golf Club is far more the style of golf game I want to play, but I enjoy three or four World Daily Tournaments a week on Hot Shots Golf World Invitational on my PS3. It is an impeccably crafted game!
 
S

ShaneB

Member
OnlookerDelay said:
ShaneB, I have little doubt that we'll see Hot Shots Golf XXXX at some point on the PS4. My guess is Fall of 2015. While I don't pretend to think that The Golf Club will fully pacify gamers who want a Hot Shots game; I think they may surprise themselves at how much this game may at least keep them entertained while they wait. The Golf Club is far more the style of golf game I want to play, but I enjoy three or four World Daily Tournaments a week on Hot Shots Golf World Invitational on my PS3. It is an impeccably crafted game!
Click to expand...

=) To clarify, my comment is more to the fact that I have no interest in getting a ps4 or XB1 any time soon, or ever. I've always loved HSG, so to have a similar golf experience on PC would be excellent, and from what I see in the videos from One Golf Club, looks really great, so I'm excited!
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
ShaneB said:
=) To clarify, my comment is more to the fact that I have no interest in getting a ps4 or XB1 any time soon, or ever. I've always loved HSG, so to have a similar golf experience on PC would be excellent, and from what I see in the videos from One Golf Club, looks really great, so I'm excited!
Click to expand...

Doh! Yeah, I missed the PC stipulation on your comment. I don't think we're going to see a Hot Shots Golf style game on the PC anytime soon. Winning Putt is probably a little closer to Hot Shots Golf on the PC. It will have the horizontal, 3-click meter that's just like one of the swing meter options in HSG and it will have more of the flair of the HSG series. I don't think we'll see Winning Putt until the Summer, at the earliest though. Daum Communications has a second closed beta in Korea set for "a few months" from February 5th.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
OnlookerDelay said:
Doh! Yeah, I missed the PC stipulation on your comment. I don't think we're going to see a Hot Shots Golf style game on the PC anytime soon. Winning Putt is probably a little closer ti Hot Shots Golf on the PC. It will have the horizontal, 3-click meter that's just like one of the swing meter options in HSG and it will have more of the flair of the HSG series. I don't think we'll see Winning Putt until the Summer, at the earliest though. Daum Communications has a second closed beta in Korea set for "a few months" from February 5th.
Click to expand...

Winning Putt looks awesome from what I'm seeing, thanks for pointing that out as well, will keep that on my radar.
 
LoveCake

LoveCake

Member
First i have heard of this, but i am now pretty interested in it & hope to hear more good things about it, the last golf game i had was a Tiger Woods one on my X360 quite a few years back though, i hope this will be good as we really need a alternative to EA sports games.

The best golf game i have played is the Golden Tee arcade games, not so easy after a few beers though !
 
M

Mdot

Member
I was just thinking yesterday about how disappointing it was to not have a new Tiger this year for the new systems. This looks solid. Wish they would have some licensed courses along with the custom ones, but I'll keep my eye on it.
 
O

OnlookerDelay

Member
The Golf Club might look a little meh, at this point, but keep in mind they're creating a nucleus around which a game can evolve. Right now their course object library is a little light and that's why the screen shots look a little barren. They will be adding objects to that library as the game evolves after release. The Golf Club will not be an annualized series like Tiger Woods. HBS will be adding content and updates throughout The Golf Club's life, with significant updates carrying a nominal fee.

Rich Grisham interviewed Peter Garcin, the Executive Producer of The Golf Club in his Press Row Podcast this week. When you hear the design basis behind this game, there's a lot to get stoked about. I think their swing interface is going to be what everyone is talking about post release. Here's a link to the Press Row Podcast: http://www.operationsports.com/forums/golf/708086-press-row-podcast-golf-club-executive-producer-peter-garcin.html
 
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